Last night as Hurricane Irene bore down upon new york city, we hunkered down and made some curry! It was the perfect thing to eat while eagerly waiting for the storm.

Otherwise known as a Navratan Korma, this was my own twist on a delicious creamy vegetable curry.as always with my curry recipes i will divide the spices into groups depending on when they need to be added. This particular curry has lots of separate steps to take in order to prepare your mis-en-place, but otherwise the actual steps taken are quite simple.

1. Prepare your spice bowls.2. Cut all vegetables to equal sized pieces and parboil them. these will be cooked more later, so don’t overdo it now. strain and set aside in a colander.3. Cube the tomatoes, grate the onion, grate the ginger and the garlic.4. Heat the ghee and 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a pan. fry the paneer until it is golden brown on all sides. pour the paneer with ghee and all over the vegetables in the colander. While its still hot sprinkle some garam masala over them and toss.

Boiled Veggies and Paneer sprinkled with Garam Masala

Now that everything is prepared we can get onto the cooking of the actual curry.

1. In a medium sized pot, heat some olive oil, and add in Spice Group A. fry for about 30 seconds, and then add in the onions. fry these together for about 4-5 minutes. Add the Ginger and the Garlic, and fry for 30 more seconds.

2. throw in Spice Group B and fry together for about a minute. add the chopped tomatoes, and fry for 3-4 more minutes:

Spices and Tomatoes

3. Add the vegetables and paneer, and toss until they are all nice and coated in the spice-tomato mixture.

4. Add the can of coconut milk, bring to a boil and simmer until the potatoes are just tender.

simmering curry

Serve with rice, and sprinkle a little cilantro on top for added effect!

and that’s about it! you can make this during a hurricane no problem, as long as your gas stays on…. or you can make it any other day and its just as good!

as part of my continuing experimentation in learning to cook indian food, i made a tomato based curry with potatoes and green beans. The Recipe i started with called it Mattar Batata, and was made with potatoes and green peas (Green Peas are called Mattar). However i didn’t have any green peas, and instead i had beans. So the name Mattar Batata is not really correct and this should really be called something else, probably with the name Aloo in it (Aloo is potatoes).

Anyhow its very easy to make.

Heres what i used in my made up curry based off of Mattar Batata. As with my other recipes for indian food i will divide the spices into groups, for when they need to be added to the mix.

A Handful of green beans (put your two hands together and however many beans fit in there. thats how many you need!! )

1 tomato (finely diced)1 80z can crushed tomatoes

So first!

Organize your Spices into two bowls, and have them ready.

Heat up the oil in a medium sized pot, and add in Spice Group A:

SPICE GROUP A

Cook for about 10 seconds, and then add in the onions, garlic, and carrots. stir and cook until the onions are a little wilted, and then add the potatoes. fry the potatoes until they start going brown. don’t worry if they are sticking, let them stick. This will add to the flavor!

Once the Potatoes are browned add in Spice Group B:

SPICE GROUP B

Stir them together and then add half a cup of water (it won’t cover it completely). Bring to a boil and boil for about 10 minutes (or until the potatoes are soft). The water will mostly boil off at this point, but some should remain.

At this point you can add in the beans, the tomato, and the crushed tomatoes, and simmer for a further 5-7 minutes – or until the beans are tender, but still a little crunchy (As good beans should be!)

pepper jack cheese (grated) you could use cheddar, or any other cheese of your own fancy.

preheat the oven to 450°

So First! i sauteed the peas, garlic, and peas, in a little olive oil and flavored them with some salt and pepper and some paprika. when they were all done i put them in my blender and blended it until it was a fine mush. or one might say a purée…

Next! i made my béchamel. that’s pretty easy. first you melt the butter. then you add the flour to the butter, and mix it together. then you add the milk stirring constantly. when it comes to a boil it should be a pretty thick mixture. yum yum! this is an important base to lots of different recipes. i like to add a little nutmeg for flavor. after it was done i mixed the pea purée into the béchamel.

then i took my egg whites and whipped them up until they were nice and stiff. after that i took the egg whites and folded the béchamel purée mixture together. really really fold these! no mixing! you must keep the fluffiness of the egg whites or it won’t work!

after that i filled some ramequins half way, then put a nice little bit of cheese into each one, and filled them up to the top with more of the mixture. and then a nice coating of cheese on top!

into the oven, and cook them until they have puffed up and gone nice and golden brown on top!

over the weekend i made this super delicious pasta sauce. i have to say it is probably the best damn pasta sauce i ever ate. and i say that because i really don’t like plain tomato sauce all that much. i don’t know why but i find that people spice it wrong and over cook it. i don’t know why they do this, because tomatoes are awesome! why all the spices and all the cooking for hours and hours and hours until there is nothing left but tomato paste?!

first off, i have to say that this is most definitely not my recipe. i saw this made on Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations the other day in his episode about techniques. i did some tweaking here and there but the recipe is essentially from Chef Scott Conant from Scarpetta restaurant.

Heres what you’ll need:

5 ripe plum tomatoes

4 cloves of garlic

an onion

a bunch of fresh basil

1 cup of olive oil

pasta

butter

cheese

First i blanched the tomatoes in hot water for like 15 seconds, and removed them immediately. (i saved the water so i didn’t have to boil more, to cook the pasta in)

after the tomatoes where blanched i skinned them, cut them open and squeezed out the insides into a bowl (save this bowl for if the sauce gets too dry. then you can add this juicy pulp into the sauce). i put the remaining part of the tomatoes into a pot with 1 quarter of the olive oil (1/4 cup) and i mashed them with a potato masher until they were pulpy. i let this simmer for like 30 minutes until it became pretty saucy (mashing from time to time)

in another pot, i put the rest of the olive oil, all the garlic (whole cloves) the onion (chopped up) and maybe 10 fresh leaves of basil, and i let this simmer in the oil for the entire time that the tomato sauce cooked.

when both of these things were done i took a strainer and i strained the oil into the tomato sauce (giving it all the flavor but none of the bits! genius! this is the most genius part, and what makes it the best damn sauce you ever ate!) then stir it up real good.

( but wait! don’t throw out all that delicious onion and garlic and basil! its good for other stuff! like a quiche! which should be in a post very soon!

then in a frying pan i sauteed up some pancetta (this is where i moved on from the scarpetta recipe)

i spooned some of the sauce into the pan to reduce it in a small amount (instead of letting the sauce sit for like 2 hours:

I then tossed in the pasta and put a pat of butter in it. this is the final step in the deliciousness! it made it all nice and super creamy! yum!!

I then served it with a grating of gruyere cheese (which is a nice alternative to parmesan), and some more fresh basil on top for colour!

Like this:

Last night as part of my dinner i made a dandelion salad. Dandelions you say?? YES!!! indeed dandelions. what everybody thinks is normally just a weed is actually pretty delicious as long as its the spring time and they haven’t grown to gargantuan proportions. (when they get very big they get very bitter)

This delicious recipe was introduced to me by Nicole – Julie’s Mom. i am ever so grateful she introduced me to this, i wish i could eat it all the time, as it is super super delicious!

now then, dandelions grow everywhere. but you should be careful that they are not in a cow field or something as the cows will probably have pooped on them, if there are any left… cows know all about how delicious dandelions are and so eat them all up!! also, since they are technically a weed, you need to get them from a place that hasn’t put poison all over them… cuz that’s just gross…

so the first thing to do is to pick yourself a whole lot of dandelions. the next thing is to not pick the flowers, you just want the leaves. about 4-5 inches in length. bigger than that and they are too big. i have seen dandelion in the supermarket, but they are normally really really big, and when they are that big they really are way too bitter.

so after you pick yourself a nice basket of dandelions, take them home and start washing them. wash them good, and pick out all the grass and flower buds and anything else that may have found its way into your basket:

After you have cleaned everything very well, take a knife and chop everything up real well:

Then take your hard boiled eggs and slice them nicely and put them in the salad:

add a splash of balsamic vinegar, and some of your choice of oil. give it a toss!

take the bacon and chop it up all nice and small, and also take an onion and chop it all up nice and small. if you want you can serve this on the side, or you can mix it in. this adds a nice bit of extra flavor!